TODAY IN HISTORY

Today is Tuesday, Feb. 18.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

On Feb. 18, 1970, the “Chicago Seven” defendants were found not guilty of conspiring to incite riots at the 1968 Democratic national convention; five were convicted of violating the Anti-Riot Act of 1968 (those convictions were later reversed).

ON THIS DATE

In 1546, Martin Luther, leader of the Protestant Reformation in Germany, died in Eisleben.

In 1564, artist Michelangelo died in Rome.

In 1861, Jefferson Davis was sworn in as provisional president of the Confederate States of America in Montgomery, Alabama.

In 1885, Mark Twain’s “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” was published in the U.S. for the first time (after being published in Britain and Canada).

In 1930, photographic evidence of Pluto (now designated a “dwarf planet”) was discovered by Clyde W. Tombaugh at Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona.

In 1943, Madame Chiang Kai-shek, wife of the Chinese leader, addressed members of the Senate and then the House, becoming the first Chinese national to address both houses of the U.S. Congress.

In 1983, 13 people were shot to death at a gambling club in Seattle’s Chinatown in what became known as the Wah Mee Massacre. (Two men were convicted of the killings and are serving life sentences; a third was found guilty of robbery and assault.)

In 1988, Anthony M. Kennedy was sworn in as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.

In 1997, astronauts on the space shuttle Discovery completed their tuneup of the Hubble Space Telescope after 33 hours of spacewalking; the Hubble was then released using the shuttle’s crane.

In 2001, auto racing star Dale Earnhardt Sr. died in a crash at the Daytona 500; he was 49. Veteran FBI agent Robert Philip Hanssen was arrested, accused of spying for Russia. (Hanssen later pleaded guilty to espionage.)

In 2003, an arson attack involving two South Korean subway trains in the city of Daegu claimed 198 lives. (The arsonist was sentenced to life in prison, where he died in 2004.)

Ten years ago: In Austin, Texas, software engineer A. Joseph Stack III crashed his single-engine plane into a building containing IRS offices, killing one person besides himself. President Barack Obama personally welcomed the Dalai Lama to the White House, but kept the get-together off camera and low key in an attempt to avoid inflaming tensions with China.

Five years ago: President Barack Obama, hosting a White House summit on countering violent extremism, said Muslims in the U.S. and around the world had a responsibility to fight a misconception that terrorist groups like the Islamic State were speaking for them.

One year ago: Scientist Wallace Smith Broecker, who raised early alarms about climate change and popularized the term “global warming,” died at a New York hospital at the age of 87.

THOUGHT FOR TODAY

“Opinion is that exercise of the human will which helps us to make a decision without information.” — John Erskine, American author and educator (1879-1951).

— ASSOCIATED PRESS